Supply chain transparency (SCT) regulations mandate or encourage international trade participants to provide information about a product’s supply chain path to specified stakeholders. SCT is an important regulatory tool for pursuing various public policy objectives, such as supply chain security, resilience, trade facilitation, and sustainable development. The transnational nature of SCT regulations and their characteristics as a technical barrier to trade (TBT) have created challenges to global trade governance and the international rule of law. This article focuses on SCT regulations adopted by the United States and the European Union. It suggests that recent US and EU SCT regulations are likely to constitute extraterritorial jurisdiction over foreign traders and data beyond their borders, create TBTs for many traders, and may conflict with domestic data security laws (DSLs). To promote the international rule of law and public-private collaborative governance, the article proposes recommendations for designing and implementing SCT regulations at the international level.
This paper examines Vietnam’s emerging role in the global semiconductor supply chain, highlighting how policy frameworks, foreign direct investment (FDI) strategies, and technology diplomacy interact to shape the country’s industrial trajectory. Drawing on policy documents, trade data, and investment trends, the study assesses Vietnam’s efforts to attract high-quality FDI, strengthen domestic technological capabilities, and integrate into global production networks. The analysis underscores the government’s pursuit of a balanced approach, which links industrial upgrading and sustainability with national security and global cooperation. It argues that Vietnam’s semiconductor strategy exemplifies a form of ‘technology diplomacy’, through which the state leverages economic openness and strategic partnerships to advance its digital transformation agenda and enhance sustainable competitiveness. The findings contribute to broader discussions on how developing economies can position themselves within high-technology sectors under the evolving global trade and investment order.
The Appellate Body (‘AB’) of the World Trade Organization (‘WTO’) Dispute Settlement System (DSS) has been paralysed due to the USA’s reluctance to approve appointment of members. The USA has criticized the AB for its inefficiency, and other procedural and substantive issues. The Multi-Party Interim Arbitration (‘MPIA’) has arisen as an interim solution to the AB crisis. The MPIA is envisaged under Article 25 of the Dispute Settlement Understanding (‘DSU’), which lacks clarity, and the MPIA mandate goes beyond DSU’s language, by for example going beyond the specified disputes under Article 25. As it will be seen in this article, since MPIA is a plurilateral solution, it lacks effectiveness and leads to increased transaction costs and uncertainty. The systematic issues with the AB raised by the USA persist even with the MPIA. As a voluntary tool, it lacks legitimacy, and very few countries have joined the MPIA, despite of significant developed and advanced developing countries. Further, the MPIA process is detrimental to the interests of third world countries since it adopts ambitious deadlines, and places additional resource burdens on developing countries. The incorporation of additional organizational measures, such as adoption of word limits, disproportionately impacts developing countries. In light of this, I argue that the MPIA has failed to garner legal and political legitimacy, notably in the view of the majority of developing countries, and has been an inadequate and flawed solution to the AB crisis.
The collapse of the World Trade Organization (WTO) Appellate Body (AB) has raised fundamental questions about how appellate mechanisms in international dispute settlement should be institutionally designed. While existing scholarship has primarily focused on the political causes of the crisis, less attention has been paid to the structural lessons the experience offers for the design of future appellate systems, particularly in the context of ongoing reform discussions within United Nations Commission on International Trade Law (UNCITRAL) Working Group III. This article addresses that gap by examining farewell speeches delivered by departing WTO AB members as a form of institutional testimony that reveals the internal pressures within the dispute settlement system. The analysis identifies three structural dynamics that contributed to the AB’s paralysis: mandate ambiguity that generated competing narratives of adjudicative authority; the transformation of procedural rules into sites of accountability contestation once political confidence eroded; and the structural fragility created by consensus-based institutional design. Building on these insights, the article developsa graduated accountability framework for the design of the proposed UNCITRAL appellate mechanism. The framework distinguishes three complementary layers of accountability – interpretive, institutional, and constitutional – through which disagreement can be managed across successive stages before escalating into systemic confrontation. The article argues that sustainable appellate adjudication requires not only judicial independence but also an institutional architecture capable of distributing accountability across multiple layers of dialogue, oversight, and structural safeguards.
This paper evaluates whether India’s Customs Authority for Advance Rulings (CAARs) delivers the legal certainty and predictability required of an advance ruling regime under Article 3 of the WTO Trade Facilitation Agreement (TFA). An analysis of CAAR decisions issued between January 2021 and December 2024 shows that fewer than 53% of rulings are delivered within the statutory three-month time frame prescribed under Indian customs law. Delays are structurally embedded in CAAR’s operating model, driven by sequential decision-making, mandatory reliance on port-level commissioner inputs, and the absence of dedicated in-house technical expertise. CAAR’s under-performance is best understood as a design failure, not a capacity constraint: port-specific applicability and a three-year validity limit undermine the very certainty that advance rulings are meant to provide, even where individual officers act diligently. The policy implications are immediate: CAAR requires a dedicated internal technical unit, explicit confirmation of nationwide binding effect, and a reassessment, if not removal of the three-year validity restriction. Treating CAAR’s shortcomings as a design flaw rather than a staffing deficit is essential to restoring confidence in advance rulings as a trade facilitation tool, aligning India’s practice with Article 3 of the TFA, and protecting legitimate reliance interests of traders and investors.
This article questions the unilateral imposition of countervailing duties. To that end, it begins with an overview of their economic and legal rationale and subsequently focuses on the history of the multilateral provisions on countervailing duties. It concludes that, through multilateral trade negotiations, the rules governning countervailing duties have been tilted in favour of protectionist interests. It further proposes the elimination of unilateral action, and exclusive recourse to multilateral dispute settlement procedures, with the eventual imposition of authorized countermeasures.
The recent ruling against Coca-Cola Beverages Vietnam Co., Ltd. (Coca-Cola Vietnam), requiring the payment of VND 821 billion (approximately USD 31 million) in additional corporate income tax (CIT), marks a turning point in Vietnam’s enforcement of transfer-pricing and tax-compliance rules. As a major US multinational and one of the earliest American investors in Vietnam since the 1990s, Coca-Cola Vietnam reported persistent losses while continuing to expand its operations, raising critical questions as to whether these losses reflected genuine business performance or aggressive tax-planning strategies through transfer-pricing. This case demonstrates that tax abuse and profit-shifting practices are increasingly subject to effective legal scrutiny. These regulatory developments demonstrate Vietnam’s efforts to adopt effective tax-administration reforms and integrate global best practices into domestic law, thereby increasing the capacity of tax authorities to detect, challenge, and penalize non-compliant transfer-pricing or tax-avoidance schemes. The adoption of Decree No. 132/2020/ND-CP strengthened arm’s length requirements, documentation obligations, and disclosure standards, enhancing the capacity of tax authorities to detect and sanction non-compliant practices. Accordingly, the Coca-Cola Vietnam case represents not merely an isolated dispute, but a milestone in Vietnam’s broader transition toward a more transparent, harmonized, and BEPS-resistant tax regime.
The concepts of abuse and avoidance have been present in the case-law of the Court of Justice (CJ) for decades. They have also been used in the European Union (EU) customs legislation. Judgments of the General Court (GC) and the CJ in the Harley-Davidson case may lead to the question of whether the concept of avoidance has evolved significantly or whether the said judgments require a rather cautious approach. The author attempts to answer this question
This article examines the current crisis of multilateralism amid escalating geopolitical tensions, technological disruption, and the fragmentation of global governance, with a particular focus on the World Trade Organization (WTO). It argues that the paralysis of the WTO Appellate Body (AB) represents not merely an institutional malfunction but a systemic shift away from rule-based multilateralism toward power-based and fragmented arrangements. The analysis situates this development within a broader transformation of the international order characterized by flexible alliances, increased reliance on plurilateral agreements, and diminishing consensus-based decision-making. It further underscores the growing importance of political risk assessment in strategic decision-making as global rules lose enforceability. Drawing on recent examples – including Peru-s experience in the WTO’s fisheries subsidies and e-commerce negotiations – the article concludes that restoring effective multilateralism requires institutional adaptation, flexible negotiation frameworks, searching alternatives to consensus and renewed political commitment.
The World Trade Organization’s (WTO’s) normative framework has been gravely imperilled since adoption of the policy of trade protectionism by the current United States (US) administration that imposed prohibitive tariffs under the International Economic Emergency Powers Act (IEEPA) in 2025. These measures could not be efficaciously challenged within the WTO system paralysed by US-induced dysfunction of its Appellate Body (AB), with adverse panel rulings being appealed into the void. The US Supreme Court’s invalidation of these tariffs imposed constitutional constraints on presidential powers, yet the danger persists due to imposition of newer global tariffs and ongoing section 301 investigations. This article analyses the wisdom and ramifications of these protectionist US law and policy measures through the prism of Game Theory, International Relations (IR) Theory, and WTO Law. Furthermore, it decodes India’s strategic trade diplomacy responses in forging ‘Deep’‘WTO Plus’ bilateral free trade agreements (FTAs), compliant with the WTO norms under its ‘variable geometry’, with several of its trading partners including the US, demonstrating the significance of strategic bilateralism along with diplomatic restraint that can also serve as stepping stones to revival of trade multilateralism.
This article analyses both dimensions in turn. It first explains the Global Anti-Base Erosion Rule (GloBE) framework and its implementation in Switzerland, with particular attention to the practical implications for Swiss companies. It then examines the evolution of US trade conditions – including the tariff shock, the section 232 measures on steel, aluminium and pharmaceuticals, the November 2025 Framework Agreement, and the current state of bilateral negotiations. Finally, it considers how the two policy environments intersect and what the key challenges ahead are for Swiss multinational enterprises (MNEs), exporters, importers, and the new trade order – balanced bilateralism.
Transnational subsidies, that is subsidies across jurisdictions, are a phenomenon of our times and are difficult to square within the four corners of the WTO rule-book. This talk will first investigate the different approaches of the EU and the US in regulating transnational subsidies. In so doing, it will explore the different (or similar?) approaches to international law across the Atlantic. The lecture will then conclude with the analysis of the issues before the WTO Panel in EU – CV/AD on Steel products from Indonesia (DS 616) which recently published its report. We will comment on the Panel’s findings and implications, on what the Panel did and on what it should have done. Ultimately, the lecture is about the different shapes international law can take – domestically and internationally.
In 2023, India exported USD 39.1 billion and imported USD 46.7 billion worth of metals, ranking as the world’s tenth largest exporter and sixth largest importer of metals. These figures underscore the centrality of metals to India’s trade profile. This paper reviews India’s contemporary metals and steel trade policy, tracing its evolution from post-independence import substitution to its present hybrid model of calibrated openness and strategic protection. It outlines the roles of key governmental authorities, such as the Directorate General of Foreign Trade (DGFT) and relevant ministries, in formulating and implementing this framework. To illustrate how these policies operate in practice, the article presents a case study on steel, detailing export and import regulations and highlighting key initiatives such as the Production-Linked Incentive (PLI) scheme, Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS) certification and Steel Import Monitoring System (SIMS). In doing so, the article sets the stage for evaluating future developments in India’s metals trade policy amid evolving global trade dynamics.span lang="EN-US"o:p/o:p/span
The first paper of this research covered some of the most important arguments for and against Genetically Modified Organisms (GMO). It also explained how the measures in Peru and Mexico are designed, as well as their current status. This second paper focuses on the compatibility of Peru's and Mexico's domestic measures with the Agreement on Sanitary and Phytosanitary Measures (SPS Agreement) of the World Trade Organization (WTO). In the case of Mexico, this paper analyses some provisions of the United States-Mexico-Canada (USMCA) Agreement and the award in the dispute Mexico - Measures Concerning Genetically Engineered Corn. This paper also explains the role of the Cartagena Protocol on Biosafety (CPB) in the GMO discussion. The paper concludes that the import ban measures on GMO adopted by Peru and Mexico are inconsistent with the SPS Agreement within the WTO framework. Therefore, these measures should be either removed or modified. However, contrary to the conclusion reached by the arbitral tribunal in the dispute Mexico - Measures Concerning Genetically Engineered Corn, this paper argues that Mexico's measure could have been justified under the USMCA.
Trade compliance is a two-way street, namely the potential costs and risks should be analysed and monitored from selling (exporting) and buying (importing) perspective. The case of First Brands Group (FBG) shows how the trade compliance risks and costs were probably overlooked for years from both sides, namely as importer of finished spare parts and as a domestic seller/distributor of them. Now, the US prosecutors are indicting the founders of FBG on financial fraud charges after the company filed for bankruptcy in September last year. (First Brands founder indicted on US fraud charges, The Financial Times Limited 2026) This article briefly describes the FBG case and how trade compliance risks should be identified from abusive general terms and conditions of purchase.
This article examines the issue of when the five-year period of reimposition of an anti-dumping duty commences after a sunset review. The article analyses the practices of all twenty-one jurisdictions that have imposed more than fifty anti-dumping duties and finds that most of these jurisdictions extend measures with effect from the finalization of the sunset review, which means that measures remain in place for more than five years. The author then analyses the words of Article 11.3 and find that duties ‘shall’ be terminated no later than five years from imposition. It provides for an exception, stating that the duty may remain in force ‘pending’ the outcome of the review. However, the choice of words suggests that if it is found that the conditions are met for extending a duty, the extension must take place from the date the duty would have lapsed but for the sunset review, and if it were not extended, it would have to lapse within five years from original imposition or last extension. The impact of this finding is that most anti-dumping duties currently in force in the world are in violation of the Anti-Dumping Agreement.
This paper examines Vietnam's emerging role in the global semiconductor supply chain, highlighting how policy frameworks, foreign direct investment (FDI) strategies, and technology diplomacy interact to shape the country's industrial trajectory. Drawing on policy documents, trade data, and investment trends, the study assesses Vietnam's efforts to attract high-quality FDI, strengthen domestic technological capabilities, and integrate into global production networks. The analysis underscores the government's pursuit of a balanced approach, which links industrial upgrading and sustainability with national security and global cooperation. It argues that Vietnam's semiconductor strategy exemplifies a form of 'technology diplomacy', through which the state leverages economic openness and strategic partnerships to advance its digital transformation agenda and enhance sustainable competitiveness. The findings contribute to broader discussions on how developing economies can position themselves within high-technology sectors under the evolving global trade and investment order.
Trade and customs risk has become a recurring operational, finance, and governance issue for many organizations. Higher effective duty rates, additional-duty regimes, multi-year lookbacks, and more targeted enforcement have increased the likelihood that customs disputes will produce material liabilities. Even companies with strong controls, careful analysis, and consistent filing practices can face residual legal uncertainty. And this exposure can result in higher cost of goods sold and lower related profit margins where a company is unable to pass on associated costs to its customers.This article explains how trade and customs insurance addresses that gap. These policies are structured around a defined customs position under current law and transfer the economic consequences of an adverse outcome (incremental duties, interest, penalties, and defence costs) to one or more A-rated specialty insurers. The article describes common use cases, explains key policy terms and exclusions, and walks through the underwriting process. It also illustrates how these policies are used in practice to support financing, streamline negotiations, and make planning more predictable.
This article examines how Korea’s new anti-circumvention law under the Customs Act reshapes the compliance landscape for importers in steel, chemical and battery supply chains. It explains how circumvention investigations differ from traditional anti-dumping cases and identifies highrisk third-country routing and minor-alteration structures. It then sets out how contracts, origin management and logistics design can be redesigned to anticipate enforcement and distils these insights into a practical checklist that can be embedded into internal compliance programmes (ICPs).
